A blog about the construction of a small 2ft square home shunting layout based on a concrete works in O-14. That is 2ft gauge in 7mm scale. The layout will use kit built track, wagons and a Ruston LBT loco from the RCL / KB scale range. The other loco is an Orenstein and Koppel MD2 open cab type - a black dog kit on a KB scale chassis.

Monday, 21 February 2011

Shepton mallet 2011

The Shepton show was a cracker as Expected.

I got hold of a copy of the extraordinary thakeham tile railway book that has really got the thoughts going - do I need an incline or should I sink the hopper into the ground? I also bought a nice little booklet on rustons. It's a great general history of the types but if you want detail on the differences over the years in a single type then it's not good enough. But then it was only a fiver.

I also added to the collection of 7mm details some of which dad picked up for me from a 7mm show. Here be ladders, sacks, boxes, pallets etc.

And finally after some discussion with the experts I took the plunge with a kadee starter kit. For £26 I got 4 packs of couplings (8 pairs), a proper coupler height gauge with included coupling, special tweezers, lubricant, manual uncoupling tool and a magnet uncoupler - bargain. I have no idea if I went for the right type as there are many versions, time will tell. I went for number 43 which has the shortest reach and should thus allow for close coupling, centre set as that seemed a good point to start at (you can buy couplers that are slightly higher or lower by their setting in the pocket) and metal of type 40 rather than the plastic type 30 as they are sturdier.

I have opened one packet and shall now experiment. In the meantime I need a test track and so sn3 track is being sought.